


Silverthorn

by orphan_account



Category: Neon Genesis Evangelion
Genre: 19th Century, AU Fic, Accidents, Alternate Universe - 19th Century, Alternate Universe - Victorian, Angels, Canonical Character Death, Character Death, Child Death, Complete, Depersonalization, Derealization, Drowning, Hallucinations, I Can't Believe I Wrote This, I WROTE A LOT OF THIS AT SCHOOL, I ended it on almost-poetry oops, I hope this doesn't give off a horror vibe, I'm Sorry, ITS NOT THAT BAD I SWEAR, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Inspired by Music, Inspired by Novel, Involantary Manslaughter?, It's supposed to be a tradgedy with supernatural elements, Its sort of implied to be ghosts/angels?, Kinda, Kinda?, M/M, Manslaughter?, Missing Persons, Non-Graphic Violence, Not Happy, Oops, Period-Typical Homophobia, Scar Worship, Scars, Secret Relationship, Self-Harm, Self-Mutilation, Stabbing, Starts in 1863 to be exact, Supernatural Elements, Victorian, You can't tell its set in England, auditory hallucinations, graphic description of drowning, murder?, this is a mess, this sounds so bad, to say the least
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-11
Updated: 2016-01-25
Packaged: 2018-05-18 15:06:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5932726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'A cello bow adorned with jades and sapphires, one end tapered to a point of silver. She referred to the bow as her ‘Silverthorn’, and absolutely adored it.'</p><p>Inspired by the story of Kamelot's tenth studio album 'Silverthorn'</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Song for Rei

**Author's Note:**

> Silverthorn's story always reminded me of NGE for some reason. I think it's because a couple characters are similar, there's angels, both are really messed up tbh and that they both have religious aspects? I don't really know.  
> I tried to imitate the writing style of the original work and failed terribly, so this may get a rewrite at some point in my personal writing style, we'll see.
> 
> This story has been written for a while already, but handwritten, and I take forever to type things up. //RIP
> 
> So yeah, enjoy this if you can I guess. (It's not very good and... well the tags.)

Sitting at the table for supper one evening, Asuka decided to ask her parents a question that had been playing on her mind for almost four years. Her younger sister, Rei, was five, almost six, and yet she was the youngest child. Most other families had a new child almost every year, and she had recently received word that her aunt had just given birth to twins.

As soon as she finished asking her question, the atmosphere in the dining room grew heavy. Yui, her mother, grew deathly pale, almost sheet white. Her father, Gendo, slammed an open palm on the table, creating a loud noise and rattling some of the cutlery. Tears began to well up in Yui’s eyes.

Gendo loudly forbade all of them from asking any questions of that nature. Yui then quickly stood up from her seat, crying freely now. She didn’t excuse herself as she ran out of the room.

\----

Shinji lay in his bed that night, gazing out of the window of the room he shared with his siblings at the stars. He was thinking about his parents’ reaction to his twin sister’s question. That’s when he began to hear cello music, a sorrowful melody he hadn't ever heard his mother play before.

Yui Ikari loved playing her cello, for their wedding, Gendo had gotten her a cello bow adorned with jades and sapphires, one end tapered to a point of silver. She referred to the bow as her ‘Silverthorn’, and absolutely adored it. With her love of music, it wasn't unusual to hear her playing music, nor to hear her playing new pieces, but she never seemed to play sad music.

That was what made it click for Shinji, and it must have for Asuka too, as in the darkness, she turned to look at him and he did to her.

No words had to be exchanged in their moment of shared realisation. It’s not like they could anyway, paralysed as they began to understand the gravity of the situation.

From that day on, Shinji and Asuka treasured their little sister Rei even more, as they then knew that they would never have any more siblings.

////

Some weeks later, Asuka insisted that they went out, as it was a hot, sunny day with a refreshingly cool breeze. So, Shinji, Asuka and Rei went out to play near a nearby river.

The river carved a path out of the large grassy field, meaning there was a steep ledge that would make it very difficult to get out of the river should you fall in. They stayed near to the river, but not close enough for them to have to worry about falling in.

Asuka was flying a kite. A colourful kite with vivid golds and greens in the shape of a dragon. The tail was a long crimson ribbon that danced in the wind and, as it was her most prised possession, she wouldn’t let Shinji so much as lay a finger on it.

Having found a stick, Rei was drawing in a patch of dry dirt, a smile on her face. Shinji was content to watch Rei draw, Auska’s kite soar gracefully in the sky or even just lie there, enjoying the nice weather and perhaps watch the clouds.

Soon, Rei grew bored. She stood up, brushing some dirt off of her pastel blue sundress, and asked Asuka if she could try flying the kite.

If it was Shinji asking, she would have said no, but Asuka had always liked Rei more. Those feelings had been intensified with her and Shinji’s recent realisation. Now she felt less jealous of the extra attention her parents gave her. She smiled and knelt down so she could show her how to hold it and how to make the kite go higher and lower.

Rei was eventually flying the kite by herself, when the wind started to pick up and a particularly bad gust almost pushed Rei over.

Shinji suggested that they should perhaps go back, but Asuka scoffed at him and said that they could go back in then the wind brought the kite down or if it rained. Rei agreed with her, as she was enjoying flying the kite.

Suddenly, the wind picked up again, a lot stronger this time, and it began to rain. Shinji was going to ask if they could go back home now, when a gust of wind knocked Rei over.

A raven took flight and called out as she fell off of the ledge and into the rushing water of the river.

Calling her name, Asuka and Shinji rushed towards the ledge. Rei held tighter to the kite, and as she struggled, the string wound itself around her little arms and legs, making it almost impossible for her to move.

She began to get swept away, and the river was much too far down and dangerous for Asuka and Shinji to jump in after her. Their pleas for her to swim were useless as her tangled limbs couldn’t move and the water was too strong for a young girl of five to fight.

She screamed and spluttered when her head broke the surface, and the path alongside the river grew too wooded for her siblings to continue following after her.

A flash of a red, gold and green kite and of a blue sundress rounded the corner, and Shinji felt horribly sick and was shaking. Then his trembling legs couldn’t support him and he fell to the ground. They continued calling Rei’s name through tears until their throats were raw.

\----

Days blurred together for a while after that, rainy and dull and tasting of salt and tears.

Yui and Gendo created a search party, hoping to find Rei. Though Asuka and Shinji knew that it would be useless.

One night a few days later, Yui broke down into wracking sobs when she realised that no one could find Rei and bring her home.

Gendo seemed vacant, even as family and friends visited. Mourners. Already knowing that she was dead and wasn’t coming back.

The silence in the house now was unbearable. Not a single note of cello music could be heard coming from the pavilion and gone too was Rei’s voice.

Everyone asked Shinji and Asuka what happened to Rei that day, but they simply looked at each other with pain and fear in their eyes, and told them that they didn’t know.

Neither of them dared to speak about the incident.

They would surely be punished beyond all belief, blamed for their little sister’s death, on top of all the guilt they felt, and how they already did blame themselves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was originally two chapters but they were very short so I shoved them together.  
> Also, I really like the idea of happy Asuka and Rei being good friends, or just Asuka and Rei as friends in general.


	2. Burden of Shame

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> But words weren't enough.
> 
> Words were never enough.

The day of the funeral arrived. Words of comfort were offered but they didn’t do anything to ease the pain of their loss.

It felt almost surreal for Shinji, being at his own younger sister’s funeral. Even more so that there was no body to bury, it being lost at the bottom of the river. He felt there was no closure without it. Though he doubted he’d feel much better being able to see the bloated, battered body of his baby sister. Because that’s what she may have well have been, a baby. Only five years old and yet death had already befallen her.

Everyone felt cursed as the final prayer was being spoken and the ceremony was drawing to a close.

Then it begun, that haunting, painfully beautiful cello melody. The one Asuka and Shini had heard once before, only now, it was even more sorrowful and passionate.

The minister paused the prayer in surprise and awe, though quickly continued. He seemed to have more sincerity and emotion behind his words. Then there was silence and it was all over.

It felt like the end, and yet it felt like the beginning.

////

There was a gap in Shinji’s memory, after Rei went around that bend in the river. A flash of both vibrant and soft colours, then she was gone. He couldn’t remember what happened afterwards, how he and Asuka got home.

A few months after Rei’s death, everyone in Shinji’s family was growing increasingly distant from him.  
Yui became withdrawn, quiet and sad, yet she was still so sweet.

Gendo started to drink, becoming more and more violent. He was always protective and had a short temper, but he had meant well. That meaning was gone now.

Asuka didn’t spend time with Shinji much anymore. She was now spending most of her time with her new friend Mari, rather than with him.

Rei had been good with the cello, great even, almost a prodigy. And so Shinji and Asuka felt an obligation to play. Whether it was to make up for her absence, to fill the empty silence in the large house, or out of guilt for her death, they didn’t know.

The pavilion, unlike the house, wasn’t silent. It almost never was. Yui was always playing there or helping Shinji or Asuka with the instrument.

Askua had a natural talent for it, though, Asuka seemed to have a natural talent for everything. One day, she played a particularly difficult piece, an old favourite of Rei’s, the whole way through.

That was the first time after Rei’s death that Shinji had seen Yui smile.

\----

As the next couple of years passed, life somehow managed to gain some sense of normality. Though it was different, wrong, meaningless. And the Ikari family grew even further apart.

Shinji became quiet and withdrawn like Yui, while Asuka became more and more like Gendo. They were both short tempered and violent, and while everyone may have had their similarities, they did nothing to stop the divide.

Gendo started to take his aggression out on Asuka. She often stayed out late and he didn’t like the company she kept, making her an easy target. Shinji stayed away from people, including Gendo, so he was never in trouble. In fact, he got the impression that Gendo had forgotten about him.

Asuka would be dragged out into the pavilion, where Gendo would take his frustrations out on her as he pleased and Yui would play her tragic song to drown out the sound of her cries.

That seemed to be the only song Yui played at that point.

As with everything, Asuka excelled at hiding it. She never let a scar, cut or bruise that couldn’t be easily explained away be seen, and she stayed strong. She didn’t let anyone see any weakness in her and she made a vow not to cry.

Numb, she simply had to have been numb to everything if she didn’t cry at that point.

Even though he wasn’t punished, Shinji had his own fair share of scars. He couldn’t have hidden them well, he wasn’t exactly good at anything, at least he didn’t think so, he just told himself it was because everyone ignored him or didn’t care that no one brought them up.

Life carried on like that for a few years, then, suddenly, the deaths began.

\----

It began with some cousins of Asuka and Shinji’s. Then spread to aunts and uncles. And then everyone was dropping dead. Each month a new story of an accident claiming the life of another family member arrived, and each month there was another funeral to attend.

Everyone was tense, scared that they would be next. There was a constant feeling of paranoia, an atmosphere of anxiety that wouldn’t go away, it just got worse and worse.

They knew though, Asuka and Shinji. They just knew that this had to be their fault. It had to be karmic retribution for the death of Rei.

At each and every funeral, Yui played that song of hers, and her song became their song.

After the sixth of these funerals, Gendo became particularly violent. He beat Asuka until Shinji thought that there might had have to have been a seventh funeral.

That night, Asuka showed a rare moment of weakness. Lying awake, she told him of her plan to leave on their seventeenth birthday the next week. She thought that it might break the curse. And if it didn’t then she ‘wasn’t going to stick around for it.’

That secret, that day that they swore to tell no one about. It still weighed heavily on their minds. So Asuka made Shinji swear aloud with her that they would never tell a single soul the truth about that day.

But words weren't enough.

Words were never enough.

And so she made them mark themselves with painful matching scars so that they would always remember, so they would never tell.

And she made them brand themselves with the word they feared the most.

Veritas.

Truth.

////

Asuka was wrong, because even after she left, the deaths continued, they continued with Yui.

Yui Ikari was never the same after the loss of Rei, and it seemed Asuka leaving was the final straw.

Shinji thought that maybe Asuka would come back for the funeral, her own mothers funeral, but on the day he searched the crowd of faces and she was nowhere to be seen.

Gendo stood silent, but after all he had done, Shinji didn't want to so much as go near the man, much less comfort him.

During a eulogy, the song began, the same song that had been played at the funerals. But Yui had played it, only Yui. It sounded as sad and sweet as her own playing, and all in attendance looked around, trying to find the person playing it.

Immediately, Shinji rose to his feet and began to frantically search for the source of the playing, her playing. The eulogy ended as Shinji rounded a corner.

Alone, on the second story balcony, sat a lone chair.

A single white rose and some horse hairs lay on it; whoever was playing the music must have been sitting there.

Looking around, Shinji saw no one.

\----

The deaths continued, and in turn, so did the funerals, and at each and every one, the same mysterious event occurred.

One night, Shinji found Gendo sitting on a chair in the parlour. At first he had thought he was sleeping, but his eyes were wide open, unblinking. When Shinji cautiously approached and gingerly touched his arm, he was stone cold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this'll have about 4-5 chapters? We'll see.  
> Fun fact, this chapter originally had Fuyutsuki in it, but the original scene was really so that another scene that I decided not to write would make sense? So I cut it out.


	3. Solitare

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kkkkkkawoshin time  
> So I wrote all of that child abuse and death at school but the gays? No, I had to write that at home.  
> Wtf brain.
> 
> Anyway, enjoy an out of place happy kawoshin chapter in the middle of this mess.

When asked to join someone on a boat trip for an afternoon, Shinji just couldn't turn them down. Not because he particularly wanted to go on the trip, or because he really liked the person, he hardly knew them actually, it was because he wasn't very good at talking to people. He had little self confidence, and would have felt terrible declining their offer, so he hesitantly came with them. 

There was someone else on that boat trip that he was very surprised to see.

Kaworu Nagisa and his family were highly well known, they were revered in almost every social circle and Shinji himself admired Kaworu. He was said to be everything he felt he wasn’t, and everything he wanted to be, intelligent, attractive, successful... Shinji was amazed to find they had a mutual acquaintance.

Kaworu sat down next to Shinji and easily started a conversation with him. (Another quality of his Shinji wished he had.) And after that day, Shinji just couldn't get him out of his head. 

Later, Kaworu called upon him and they became nearly inseparable. 

Whenever Shinji walked into a room he was in, Kaworu would look at him like he was the only thing that mattered in the whole universe, and when he smiled at him it made Shinji feel like he was the most important person in existence. 

\---- 

During the annual harvest festival, Kaworu pulled Shinji aside as he was getting overwhelmed by the number of people. Shinji wasn't thinking straight, and with the knowledge that no one was looking he didn't care if it was wrong. He kissed Kaworu before he even knew what he was doing. When he came to his senses, he quickly pulled away, too fearful of Kaworu's potential response to be able to speak. 

But Kaworu just smiled a little wider, and he somehow held even more affection in his red eyes. Shinji couldn't help but feel a little proud at how he had made someone who was usually so cool and collected's eyes widen a little, and especially proud that he had made him blush slightly. 

And with an impossibly light touch, Kaworu pulled Shinji close and kissed him back. 

Shinji hadn't ever been so glad to make a mistake in his life. 

\---- 

Of course nobody ever found out about the two. Kaworu was like Asuka in the way that he was great at almost everything. (One of the more notable examples of something he was bad at being cooking.) And by spring the next year they may as well have been married.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now you can truly see that I really can't write.


	4. Veritas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shinji didn't think he'd ever know; he never did understand people.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kind of a bonus chapter?  
> If you thought the chapetrs were short before, do I have news for you.  
> Anyway, this is just something I felt should have probably been brought up in the original Silverthorn but wasn't?

Kaworu didn't mention the scars. 

Shinji thought that he'd fuss and worry and ask him why, but he just idly traced them with his fingers or brushed over them with his lips, or kissed them all or even just ignored them. He always ignored the Veritas brand though. Maybe it was instinct, or maybe it was just that words seemed so much more personal. 

(But words were never enough were they?) 

(That was what she had told him at least.) 

Shinji always wondered why nobody asked Kaworu about his scars, as he didn't even try to hide them. The scars on his neck and wrists, that somehow managed to be clean and messy and neat and jagged at the same time. 

Shinji didn't think he'd ever know; he never did understand people.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I now realise this implies sex, meaning I have to add that to the laundry list of scary tags.  
> Whelp.  
> (Plus I hc them both somewhere on the asexuality spectrum so I just. Oh well.)
> 
> [21:09:38] POT NOODLE BITCH: bringing out my semi colon  
> lots of fucking English marks over here  
> I'm drowning in A's  
> [21:09:50] Hybrid Changeling: ubgiojnk


	5. Falling Like the Fahrenheit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The room looked wrong, felt wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song this chapter is named after might be my favorite on the album.

The curse of his family was something that Shinji had long since naïvely forgotten about by that point. 

Kaworu and Shinji received word that a distant relative had passed away, and so naturally they made the short journey to the funeral. 

The funeral proceeded as any funeral normally would, and Shinji had forgotten about what could happen. 

During the closing prayer, Shinji heard a faint melody. A familiar melody. 

A cello melody. 

It seemed no one else could hear it. Had they forgotten? Did they not care? 

Shinji got up and began frantically searching for the person playing the cello. He couldn't figure out where it was coming from and just as he was about to leave he spotted a chair in an empty room. 

A lone chair with a single white rose laying on it. 

When he saw him again, Kaworu asked Shinji why he suddenly left, but he was too scared to respond. He'd have to explain all of it to him, from the beginning, from Rei. 

The carriage ride seemed so much longer in complete silence. 

\---- 

When he got back, Shinji took a walk in the forest to clear his head, and as he was walking back, he began to hear cello music. _The _cello music.__

__He broke into a run across the pavilion, and there, in the same spot Yui used to practice her song, was Askua playing Yui's cello._ _

__Askua, Asuka was back. Asuka was back and playing their mother's cello. She was playing it with a normal bow, not the Silverthorn. Where was it? Shinji almost stopped to talk to her, his long missing sister. But he couldn't, something didn't feel right. He didn't know why, but he ran past her and up the stairs to his bedroom._ _

__On the bed lay Kaworu, with the Silverthorn through his neck._ _

__////_ _

__The room looked wrong, felt wrong. It smelt coppery, slightly sweet._ _

__He looked down at his hands. They were red._ _

__He slowly walked down the steps. Then out the door, into the pavilion. Asuka was still still sat there. She was despondent. A white rose lay in front of her._ _

__A group of men arrived. They demanded to know why he was covered in blood. Another group retrieved Kaworu's body._ _

__Asuka p oin t e d to him. Sh e bl a m ed h i m. Said that h e wa s the o ne who had b e en mi s s ing. But wasn'tshe the onewho was missing?_ _

__And they stood behind him, the angels. Great grey wings on their backs and crowns of dark coloured flowers in their hair, white roses. She had a raven on her shoulder. And all of their red eyes were focused on him. On Shinji._ _

__A cello melody began to play._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haha.  
> I'll admit the original ending wasn't as confusing. (I just wanted to end it on almost-poetry because I love poetry.)  
> It was pretty confusing though, and it ended on the same line.  
> I just skipped a few scenes really.
> 
> Plus I wanted to finish this monstrosity. //rip


End file.
